joejoeloe

Stuck in my craw...

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 21:21:38 GMT

There was an article in the Post the other day about the looming Hollywood writer’s strike. The article’s author basically spends twelve paragraphs explaining why she thinks it’s great TV writers are going on strike, since all they write is trite garbage anyway.

Um, hello…you write for the New York Post! Talk about trite, your paper’s an over glorified newsstand tabloid that tries to pass off as a newspaper. And on top of that, how can you degrade these writers for wanting to get a bigger piece of the entertainment pie? How do you justify “let them strike, their product is crap anyway” as a serious response to the livelihood of individuals?

The author argues that these writer’s already make thousands per episode, and thus are greedy. Does she take into account how much the networks make from these shows? How is it right to sit and argue that Hollywood writers don’t deserve to make more money because they already make more money then most people in other fields? Guess what, different jobs pay different amounts! Miss newspaper writer probably makes twice what I make, should she not be allowed to ask for a raise because of me? Heck, I’m sure I make more money then tons of people across the country, should I ask for a pay decrease? Just to be fair?

The writer’s want a higher percentage of “new media,” like downloads and DVD sales, the things that were never taken into account in the past. Things that the studios are making millions (if not billions) on. The writers deserve their piece of the pie. They are an important part of the process and should be compensated as such. And while I won’t disagree that a lot of the films and TV shows that have come out recently aren’t the greatest in quality, I don’t blame the writer’s per se. The networks could easily get different writers if they don’t like what they are seeing. Viewers could tune out and find better ways to use their time. Cancel the shows, sure, but don’t deny that as long as the show is on and bringing in money, everyone involved in the show deserves to see a part of that cash.

This is where the subject goes...

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:05:20 GMT

It occurred to me the other day – Emo and Country really are just two sides of the same coin. Follow me here, it’s all the same; the girl’s gone, the bottle’s your best friend, and the dog is too busy playing snow cone with his lower regions to offer you any comfort. The difference is in the approach. Country guys grin and bear it (“she’s gone, but she was no good anyway, at least I’ve got my gun”), while the emo guys whine and mope over it (“she’s gone, now all I’ve got is this spork to rip her from my tortured soul”). It really is all the same.

Somehow I think there’s a movie plot (be it a short or otherwise) somewhere in that last paragraph. I’m adding it to my list! Right under my action flick take on Al Gore’s environmental crisis, “An Inconvenient Truth: First Blood.” Now THAT’S a script I need to write!

Yay! 2005!

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:38:51 GMT

For my first post in Live Journal (that’s right, I’ve officially caught up with two years ago) I have a decision to make. Do I make this something grand and all encompassing? Do I try to sum up the recent years of my life into a few short paragraphs? Do I summarize my whole life story, starting from that hospital room and the doctor yelling at my mother to push?

I’ve decided to go with option 23, which is to start off like I’ve already been keeping one of these damn things forever and thus there’s no need to go back any further than this past weekend. By the way, am I the only one who feels like Doogie Howser at the end of every episode as I listen to myself narrate these words while typing them? Crazy.

So this weekend I did something I haven’t done in a long time – clothes shopping with my aunts. Now I know this doesn’t sound fun or exciting, but you’ve never been clothes shopping with my aunts. Basically the day consists of my Aunt Ellen finding things for my Aunt Debbie to try on, and Aunt Debbie not liking any of them. Aunt Debbie complains she’s never fashionable. Aunt Ellen explains to Aunt Deb that she is not fashionable because comfort is important to Aunt Deb, and as we all know, what’s fashionable and what’s comfortable usually do not go hand in hand.

Aunt Deb decided she wanted some sort of designer jeans, so we went shopping for them. She tries them on. They’re not comfortable. Yet she tries on a second pair. And third. And fourth. She decides she likes them, then changes her mind. It’s a process. All the while, Aunt Ellen gathers more stuff for her to try on. And my brother and I sit and make dumb jokes. Renee was with us too, but she was trying on some stuff as well, thus missed out on most of the humorous moments, like when Aunt Deb decided to try on the pants with her sneakers (for length reasons), but only one sneaker. I suggested she also do a runway walk while wearing the one shoe, just cause. She did, and I’ll say now what I said then, it was like the Special Olympics Fashion Show. Good times.

That was Saturday. Sunday, Renee and I had our first screening in the New York Film Festival. It keeps occurring to me that this is the third year we’re doing the festival. It is crazy to me thinking that. Our first movie was “The Orphanage,” a horror film of sorts with a great emotional twist. I really liked the film a lot. I’m working on writing a full review of it, so I’ll put that in here when I do. Plus I want to post it on the message board over at JoBlo.com, since in the past when I posted reviews there I received good feedback from other posters reading it.

We also had a film in the festival on Monday. “4 Months, 3 Weeks, And 2 Days,” which won the Palm D’Or at Cannes this year. Good movie, again I will be writing a full review. When it comes to the New York Film Festival, everything we usually see ends up being good to great. And there are seven more movies that we have tickets to.

What was most fun yesterday was going out for dinner before the movie. We went to Porterhouse NY, in the Time Warner building uptown. It is a pretty fancy restaurant, the type we’ve honestly never been to before. I’m talking they dish out your salad for you type of fancy. So Renee and I had a few moments when we weren’t fully sure what to do. Example, the waiter brings us dessert menus. We read them, decide what we want, and sit waiting for him to come back. He passes us like five times without stopping. We panic, try to figure out what we’re doing wrong. We both had our menus open in front of us. Renee suggested maybe they had to be closed. I wasn’t so sure, so I said “you close yours, I’ll leave mine open.” I figured that way we’re covered either way.

Food was great by the by. I had duck. It was the best duck ever. Totally beats out Daffy.